


Bringing It All Back Home

by kate_the_reader



Series: Going Home [1]
Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Domestic, Established Relationship, Family, Family History, Holidays, M/M, Thanksgiving, mild homophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-03
Updated: 2016-01-03
Packaged: 2018-05-11 13:20:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5628067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kate_the_reader/pseuds/kate_the_reader
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur's family are an intriguing mystery. Eames has to know more.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks, as always, to chasingriver, for brilliant, thoughtful, supportive beta work.

Eames first gets an inkling when he sees the photograph, a drugstore print, colors faded, that he finds between the pages of a book. 

Two women, an older and a younger. The younger is actually a teenager. They are squinting into the sun, laughing, the background nondescript. The teen is holding her dark hair from her eyes with her left hand, a windy day. 

Turning it over, Eames reads: "Tabitha and Skippy, Dry Prong, 1981". 

Eames turns the picture back again, looks more closely. They are mother and daughter. He studies it, realization dawning. They both have dimples, revealed by their laughter. 

Smiling to himself, Eames tucks the photo back into the book where it was, halfway through a thriller that had evidently failed to hold Arthur's attention, and slips the book back onto the shelf. 

He doesn't say anything to Arthur that evening, but he can't help himself as they lie in bed on Sunday morning, lazy and warm. 

"Darling, don't be cross, but ... Tabitha and Skippy? I found a picture forgotten in a book." 

He looks over at Arthur, who has tensed up a bit. "My grammy and my mom," he says, his eyes sliding over to meet Eames's. 

"Dry Prong, love, did you grow up there?" Eames can't resist asking. "You've never said." 

"No, well, we moved around a lot. They lived in Dry Prong before I was born. They'd moved by the time ... Look, does it matter? I moved away." 

"Of course it doesn't matter, love. But you know me, always curious, always poking around. And of course, I want to know everything. But not if you don't want to say." 

"It's not interesting, Eames," Arthur sighs, turning over and settling his back against Eames's chest. "It's just the past." 

And Eames tries to be good, he really does try to let it go, but he can't, it's a too-delicious mystery. 

One evening as they cook dinner, moving easily together in the small kitchen, chopping, stirring, reaching around each other for the salt, the herbs, Eames tries again, casually. 

"So, was it just you, with your mum and gran?" 

"You mean, what about my father?" Arthur asks, his shoulders stiffening just a bit, only Eames would notice. 

"Well, yes, your family. Tell me about them?" 

Arthur turns from the stove where he's stirring the sauce. He holds out the spoon to Eames. 

Eames leans forward, takes Arthur's wrist to steady the spoon, tastes. "A bit more oregano, perhaps?" 

Arthur nods and reaches for the bottle, carefully shakes the dried herb into the sauce, stirs it again. 

"We moved around a lot. My father wasn't always ... there," he says quietly. 

Eames can't see his face as he stirs intently. He waits. 

"We lived with my grammy. Sometimes my uncle was there." He glances up. "Don't laugh, Eames." 

"Never, darling," he says. 

But he can't help himself when Arthur says: "Uncle Ginger." 

"Oh, darling, I'm sorry!" he gasps. "Uncle Ginger?" 

Arthur looks over his shoulder at Eames. He fails to look as annoyed as he clearly wants to. "Yes, Uncle Ginger, ok? He's got red hair." 

Arthur dissolves into giggles, and surprised, Eames joins him. 

"Oh, Arthur, love, Uncle Ginger!" He kisses the back of Arthur's neck, between the band of his T-shirt and his hair, which is curling in the steam from the sauce and the pasta. Arthur twitches, but he doesn't shake him off. Instead, he leans back briefly. 

He doesn't say any more, and Eames lets it drop, tucking these new details away along with the other hints Arthur has allowed him.

He finds himself returning often to the mystery, turning the picture over in his mind, the names, "Tabitha, Skippy, _Skippy?_ Ginger", curling through his thoughts. 

Arthur catches his frown, glancing up from a book one evening, the lamplight highlighting his hair. 

"What, Eames, what now?" he asks. He's not annoyed, not really. 

"So," Eames tries. "Just your gran, your mum and Uncle Ginger?" 

Arthur sighs. "For a long time, yes. My dad came by sometimes. But he worked in Alaska. He'd arrive, they'd be fine, but then ... I don't know. They didn't know each other well enough, I guess. They didn't know how to live in the same place." 

He looks at Eames, who holds his gaze but doesn't prompt. 

"So then, when I was ten, Mom had my sister, Honey," he says, his mouth quirking, his left dimple showing. "Oh god, I know, I know!" he says. 

Eames can't stop himself, he giggles. "Honey? Truly? Oh, love!" 

He's up, out of his chair and across the room. 

"Well," says Arthur, startled. "Well," he says, laughing up at Eames. 

"Tell me more, darling. Tell me more!" Eames demands, kissing him, crowding him back into the chair. 

Arthur ducks his head away. But he's still laughing as he says: "I was twelve when Candy was born." 

Eames lets his full weight fall onto Arthur, pressing him into the chair as he kisses Arthur's face again and again. "Honey, Candy ..." he gasps, finally. "Honey and Candy. And Arthur." 

Arthur smiles, but he doesn't say any more, picking up his book again. 

Eames isn't like Arthur, researching when he wants information. He prefers to learn by observing. He wonders if there are more photos. Occasionally he riffles through a few books, hoping one will fall from the pages. One day, one does. 

It's Arthur, in a graduation gown and mortarboard. Bright blue. He’s standing against a painted photographer's backdrop. Posing stiffly with the woman from the first picture. Skippy. He's serious, a slight frown between his eyes, but she has a wide, pleased, proud smile, dimples showing. A small, framed sign at their feet reads: "Rayville High School. Class of 1999". 

Eames can't resist, he doesn't tuck it back into the book, but slips it into the one he's reading, on the nightstand. 

Of course, as they lie reading in bed one evening, Arthur glances across and notices the picture, which Eames is tapping idly against his leg. 

"Where did you get that, Eames?" he asks. "Were you hunting through my things?" 

"Don't be cross, darling. But can you blame me? All I have is these little hints. Can you blame me for wanting a bit more? You know all about my sorry history, after all." 

And that's true. He has told Arthur about the school he was bored at in London. The art school he was less bored at. 

"No, I guess not," says Arthur. "Rayville High. Start, Louisiana. We lived there for three years. Then I left. I've never been back." 

"Do they still live there, your family?" Eames asks. 

"They left too. I told you, we moved around a lot." 

"Where are they now, darling? You don't visit, do you?" 

Because Arthur hasn't been away on his own since they got together, leaving in one cab from LAX after that insane flight from Sydney. Other than for jobs where only one of them is needed, they've been together pretty much constantly this past year. Slowly learning to live together, moving into this condo in Silver Lake after a few months in hotels they could easily afford on the big payout, but that they got tired of. 

"No, I haven't visited for a while. They're in Hayes now. All of them, I guess. My sisters didn't get restless, like me.” Arthur looks at him, frowning slightly. "They're all happy together." 

"Well, we're happy together, aren't we, darling?" Eames says, turning on his side to look at Arthur. 

"Yes, we are," Arthur says, fiercely. "I don't need to go visit." 

"Well, god knows, neither do I, love, neither do I. But if you wanted to, you could, you know." 

"Well, of course I know that, Eames," Arthur says, a little sharply. But he shuffles down in the bed and rests his head on Eames's chest, sighing. 

Eames ponders this the next day, as he waits for Arthur to finish researching for the next job, a little bored. Neither of them needs to visit home, but he finds he really does want to see for himself where Arthur came from. He wants to know how Arthur, all well-cut suits and sharp-eyed focus, with his cuff links and his Glock, his crisp shirts and his careful hair, arose from a series of small towns in the Deep South. He wants to meet Tabitha and Skippy and Ginger and Honey and Candy and puzzle out how Arthur fits in. He can guess why Arthur left, why he hasn't gone back. 

So, as they sit in the airport lounge the next day, waiting for their flight to Shanghai, he asks: "Would you ever take me to visit?" He doesn't need to say where. 

Arthur looks up from his laptop. 

"Why would you want to go there, Eames? They're small town people. They've never been anywhere, they won't know what to make of you. Do you really want all that?" 

"Well, yes, darling, I do. I'll take you to London, if you want." 

"I've been to London plenty, Eames," says Arthur. 

"Yes, of course, but I'll take you there, if you want," says Eames. He's not sure why he doesn't say explicitly: "I'll show you mine if you show me yours", because that's what he means. 

Suddenly, he wants them to know each other's pasts. He wants to draw back the curtain and show Arthur his younger self. 

He doesn't bring it up again until they've been home a few days after Shanghai, which had been a routine corporate job, rather boring, although they had enjoyed the city together. 

It's late October, still warm and pleasant in California, and they're sitting on the deck with glasses of wine as the evening descends. 

"Would you take me to meet your family at Thanksgiving, darling?" he asks, a bit bluntly. 

Arthur looks over at him, peering a little through the dusk. 

"You prepared for that, Eames? The full Thanksgiving with the family, turkey-and-all experience?" 

"Will there be marshmallows in the yams?" Eames asks, grinning. 

"It's the South, what do you think?" Arthur replies, dimples showing. 

"Thank you, darling," Eames says, serious. 

"Can we have Christmas in London then, Mr Eames?" Arthur surprises him by asking. 

"More turkey, love? And have you ever had English Christmas fruitcake?" 

"No. But does your mother hang up mistletoe?" 

"I'm sure it can be arranged, if that's what you want," Eames says.


	2. Chapter 2

The airport in Houston is a jammed nightmare of fractious children and cross parents when they change planes there on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. At the airport in Baton Rouge, they hire a car to drive the last 120 miles. 

Eames looks out at the flat, rather featureless countryside, the tiny towns they pass through. 

He senses Arthur's growing tension they nearer they get. 

"They're small town people, Eames," Arthur says, echoing his phrase from before. 

"Love, I'm an internationally renowned charmer," Eames says. "Do you think I won't be able to charm your family? After all, I charmed you." 

"Of course you will," says Arthur. "I'm not sure they'll charm you, though." 

Eames turns in his seat to look straight at Arthur. 

"Of course they will," he says. "They're your family." 

"Well," says Arthur, keeping his eyes on the road ahead. "Well." 

Finally, they're at the edge of Hayes. And then right in the centre, the little Main Street lined with a few shops, a square with a courthouse on one side. It's almost deserted at mid-afternoon. People have finished their Thanksgiving shopping and are at home baking pumpkin pies, Eames supposes. 

"Um," says Arthur. "I'm not sure where ..." 

He pulls over, takes out his phone and dials. "It's me, Mom," he says. "We're here. Where are you?" 

He listens, crinkling his nose. Eames can hear the tinny sound of his mother's voice spilling from the phone. 

"Ok, we'll be there soon," Arthur says and puts the phone down. 

"They're a little way on the other side of town," he says. 

Eames reaches over past the gearstick and rests his hand on Arthur's thigh. Arthur glances down and smiles. Squares his shoulders and puts the car back in gear. 

They bump down a rutted track on the other side of town until a white clapboard house backed by a stand of trees comes into view. There's a girl sitting on the peeling porch rail, who jumps up and runs down the steps. 

Arthur parks the car on the patch of grass out front and clears his throat. "That's Candy," he says, getting out. 

Eames follows, in time to hear the girl shout "Artie!" She flings herself at Arthur. 

"Hey, sis," he says, staggering slightly and glancing back at Eames. 

"This is Eames," he tells her. "Eames, my sister Candy." 

She's wearing cutoff shorts and a baggy hoodie. Furry boots. 

"Hello," says Eames. 

"Oh my, what a cute accent!" says Candy. 

Arthur raises an eyebrow, but Eames just smiles. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Candy." 

"They're all inside. They can't wait to meet Eames," Candy tells Arthur, as they follow her up the steps and into the house. 

There's noise from the back, a radio and voices talking over each other. 

Arthur hangs back slightly, brushes his hand against Eames's. "Well," he says. "Well, we're here now." 

They step into the bright kitchen. Eames recognizes Tabitha and Skippy from the photos. Ginger is easy, his hair really is a faded ginger, and the young woman with her back to the door must be Honey. 

"They're here!" says Candy. 

Arthur is dressed casually in jeans and a sweater, but it's one of Arthur's sweaters, so it's a soft gray lambswool. His hair isn't combed quite so severely, but it's still Arthur. He's obviously a member of the family, but he stands out. 

"Well, hey!" says Ginger, sticking out his hand. 

"Uncle Ginger, this is Eames," says Arthur. 

"Hello," says Eames. 

"Artie, sweetheart!" says Skippy, coming round the table from the stove and hugging Arthur. 

Eames can't help his smile. Never in a million years would Arthur let anyone anywhere else call him that. 

Arthur steps over to where Tabitha is sitting and bends to hug her. "Hi, Grammy," he says, voice a little rough. 

"Hey, sis," he says to Honey, giving her a one-armed hug. 

Eames has been standing at the door, letting Arthur have his reunion. Now Arthur turns and motions him over. "Mom, Grammy, this is Eames," he says. His smile has turned shy. 

"So you're who we have to thank for getting Artie back home at last," says Skippy. "You're real welcome in our home. I hope we won't be too much for you. I think we were sometimes a bit much for poor Artie."

"It's a pleasure to meet you," says Eames. And it really is. To see his Arthur here gives Eames a whole new appreciation for his sleek and put-together boyfriend. 

"Grammy, see, I told you ..." Arthur says to his grandmother, trailing off, and Tabitha gives Eames a sharp look. 

"Hello, young man. I hope you take good care of my boy," she says. 

Whatever Eames was expecting from Arthur's gran, that wasn't it. "I certainly try, ma'am," he says. 

Arthur gives him a startled look and rolls his eyes. 

"Doesn't he just have the cutest accent," says Candy to Honey, who turns at last, looking up from her phone. She is very pregnant. "Hi," she says, eyes traveling from Eames's face to his feet, slowing as she notices the tattoo on his collarbone. 

"Hello," says Eames. 

He's feeling uncharacteristically at a loss for words. The charm he'd boasted of, and that he can deploy smoothly in almost any circumstance, work or leisure, is oddly absent.


	3. Chapter 3

When they are finally alone, out on the porch later, Arthur slumps down on a battered old sofa. "I'm sorry. I should have known it would be like this." 

"Like what darling? They're your family. They're pleased to see you. They're perfectly nice." 

"God, Eames, the girls treat you like an exotic animal, my mom's all over you ..." 

And it's true. The girls had giggled to each other every time Eames said anything, while Arthur's mother had been rather effusive. But hell, Eames has coped with far worse at work, and if he's honest, at his own Great Aunt Susan's tea parties. 

He sits down next to Arthur and tips his head onto his shoulder. "It's alright, darling. How are you?" 

Arthur sighs and closes his eyes. "I'm just ..." 

Eames doesn't push and they sit there together in silence, the sound of the kitchen radio drifting through the open door. 

"Well, hey, what's this?" 

Eames is startled awake by a loud male voice. Blinking, he looks up at a ruddy-faced, slightly chubby young man in a stretched T-shirt, a baseball cap pushed back on his head. 

"Honey told me her fancy brother was coming to visit, but she didn't say nothin' about no boyfriend." 

Next to him, Arthur has tensed and pulled away. Honey steps out onto the porch. 

"Jim-Bob, this is my brother, Artie, and, um, Eames." 

"I figured it was your brother, babe," says Jim-Bob, grabbing her round the waist. 

Eames stands up, holds out his hand. "I'm Eames, Arthur's boyfriend, as you guessed. And you're the happy father?" He turns to Arthur, who's stood up, a little vague with sleep. 

"Hi, I'm Arthur," he says, with a slight emphasis. 

"Hiya, Artie," says Jim-Bob. 

Arthur sighs. "Arthur." 

Jim-Bob is looking steadily at Eames. Eames's shirt collar is askew, and he knows his tattoo is more visible. 

"Baby, anything to eat?" Jim-Bob says to Honey. "I'm starving. Go fix me something.” 

"Sure, babe," she says, going back into the house. 

Jim-Bob follows, turning to look back at Eames and Arthur, an assessing look on his face. 

Arthur flops back down onto the sofa. "Oh god," he says. 

Eames follows. "Jim-Bob?" He can't help himself. "Jim-Bob? Can this be real, darling?" 

"Yeah, Jim-Bob the southern homophobe," says Arthur, tiredly. "It's going to be a long weekend." 

At dinner, Ginger, who'd been quiet before, seems to expand into the presence of another man at the table, arguing loudly with Jim-Bob about who will win the big game, and who is going to barbecue the turkey. Jim-Bob keeps a hand on Honey, but doesn't really talk to her at all, Eames notices. 

Candy is occupied with her phone, giggling at messages and typing rapidly under the table. 

Arthur sits between his mother and Tabitha, looking over at Eames on the other side of the table apologetically. Eames doesn't mind, he's used to observing people. 

Jim-Bob, it emerges, works on an oil rig out in the Gulf. He's away for weeks at a time, and now he's back for an extended weekend. 

"Well, Honey's about to pop anytime, isn't she?" he says, grabbing her arm as she puts a pie on the table. She smiles at him, and rolls her eyes at Skippy. 

"This is delicious pie, ma'am," Eames tells Tabitha. 

"Grammy's pies are the best," says Arthur. 

Finally, dinner is over and Eames offers to help wash up. Jim-Bob smirks as he tows Honey out of the room. 

"Come sit on the porch with me, sweetheart," Tabitha says to Arthur. 

So Eames is left alone with Skippy, as he'd intended. 

"I'm sorry about Jim-Bob," she says. "He's a nice enough boy, I guess. And now ..." 

Eames shrugs, drying a glass. "No need to apologize," he says. 

"Thank you," she says. "It's been so long since he came home. He calls, but he doesn't tell me much about himself, you know." 

"Well," says Eames, "Here we are." 

"Where did you two meet?" she asks. 

"At the gym," he says. "I'm a personal trainer." It's an easy enough fiction. No one has ever doubted that Eames is a pleasant, over-muscled exercise expert. "Working out's a good stress reliever for someone whose job is as dull as Arthur's. Accountants, eh," he says. 

"Artie was always good with numbers. And he was always a bit too serious," she agrees. "I was so young when I had him. And he didn’t have many friends, the way we moved around. Always off by himself, or in his room with a book," she says, handing him the pie dish to dry. 

Arthur comes back in, looking from Eames to his mother. Eames smiles at him. 

“We’ve been getting acquainted,” says Skippy. 

It's not a small house, but there are six regular residents, so Skippy hands Arthur a stack of quilts and pillows and indicates that they'll be sleeping on the living room sofas. Eames eyes them doubtfully, knowing their backs will not thank them. Arthur starts making up a bed on one of the couches, but Eames takes the quilts from his arms and arranges them on the floor. 

"Come down here with me, darling," he says. 

Arthur frowns, but he relents and curls up next to Eames, sighing. "I'm exhausted, Eames," he says. "I'd forgotten how loud it is." 

"Yeah, well, there are a lot of them, aren't there," Eames says, arm around Arthur's shoulders. 

"And, oh god, Jim-Bob, he's just like every jock in high school," Arthur says. 

"Yes," says Eames, "and look at him now, and look at you." 

"I guess," says Arthur, his eyes sliding shut. 

Eames doesn't fall asleep straight away, watching Arthur and thinking about a solitary little boy, and a teenager, hunched over as he walked the corridors of Rayville High. 

Eames wakes early, groaning. The floor was a better bet than a sagging sofa, but it's not a bed. He needs to pee, so he disentangles himself from the blankets, and from Arthur's arm, and pads off to the bathroom. From behind a closed door, he hears Jim-Bob's voice. "... faggot. Bet that big boyfriend's got him just where he wants him." 

"Aw, babe, leave Artie be," says Honey. 

Back in the living room, Eames pulls on jeans and a T-shirt, and sits on the sofa, waiting for Arthur to stir. 

When he does, Arthur leans his head against Eames's leg, yawning. 

"Darling, will you come for a drive with me this morning?" Eames asks. He has to get Arthur away, where he can get him up against a tree, to kiss him and make him laugh. Out of sight of Jim-Bob and his casual ugliness. 

Eames drives with no destination in mind until they see a small stand of trees. He tugs Arthur by the hand, into the shade. Arthur grabs at Eames's arms, crowding him against the trunk of a pine. "God, Eames, oh god," he says. 

"Oh love, I know, I know," says Eames. 

When they get back, Jim-Bob and Ginger are in the yard, standing by a covered grill, beers in hand. "Have a beer," Jim-Bob shouts. 

It's barely noon, but Eames decides he needs a drink, so he goes over and accepts a Bud Light from a cooler Jim-Bob has at his feet. Arthur shakes his head and goes into the house. 

"So, Eames," says Jim-Bob, "Who do you have money on, in the game?" 

Eames doesn't care about American football, doesn't even know who's playing. 

He smiles, nods at the grill. "Smells good," he says. 

By the time dinner is ready, at 3 o'clock, Jim-Bob is loudly hammered. 

The turkey is surprisingly good, and there are indeed marshmallows in the yams. Eames had always wanted, with a slightly appalled fascination, to try that. Now he knows why he hasn't, before.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chasingriver didn't believe it, but you can roast a turkey in a covered grill. [Here's how.](http://whatscookingamerica.net/Poultry/bbqturkey.htm)


	4. Chapter 4

The television is on, and Jim-Bob and Ginger are watching, loudly disputing the ref's calls. 

So when Honey gasps and goes pale, Jim-Bob doesn't notice. Eames does. 

"Skippy, Arthur," he says, "We need to get Honey to hospital." 

"Honey, sweetheart?" says Skippy, "The baby's coming?" 

Honey's eyes are round. "Oh, Mom," she says. 

Jim-Bob looks over. "Babe, now?" 

"Yes, now," she says. 

Eames stands up. "Come Arthur, let's get Honey there quickly, shall we?" 

"Honey," says Arthur, "do you have a bag packed?" 

"God no," says Honey. "It wasn't supposed to be today." 

"Well, it looks like it is," says Eames. "We'll help you pack." 

He walks down the hallway to Honey's room. It's a mess of discarded clothes, but he grabs a duffel from under the window and empties dirty clothes onto the floor. Honey pulls things from a drawer and stuffs them in, wincing and biting her lip. Arthur comes in with things from the bathroom, as Honey collapses on the bed, gasping. 

"Let's get going," says Eames. 

Jim-Bob is hovering outside the door, swaying slightly. Eames pushes past him, arm round Honey's shoulders. "We have to go now," he says. 

“Can you drive Honey? We'll follow you," he says to Skippy. “We'll bring Jim-Bob." 

At the hospital, there's a bit of an argument over allowing the drunk Jim-Bob into the delivery room, but the doctor relents, eventually. 

Eames sits with Arthur and Skippy in the waiting room. Hours drag by, and a few more people come in. One needs stitches, it seems, after a bar fight. 

Eames goes looking for coffee and comes back with appalling lukewarm stuff from a machine. Finally, the doctor comes out, followed by a haggard-looking Jim-Bob. 

"It's a girl," says Jim-Bob. "I need a drink." 

Eames gets up. "Go with your mom to see Honey," he says to Arthur. "They'll only let family in. I'll go with Jim-Bob." 

So he ends up in a dim bar with a drunk new father on Thanksgiving evening. 

"Man," says Jim-Bob. "That was intense, man." 

"I bet," says Eames. "Have you decided on a name yet?" 

"Nah," says Jim-Bob, "gonna leave it to Honey. Thanks for getting her there," he says. 

"Pleasure," says Eames. "Someone had to. But Skippy drove her." 

They finish their beers, and Jim-Bob looks like he wants another, but Eames takes his elbow firmly and steers him to the door. 

Back at the hospital, Arthur looks radiant. "Eames, she's so cute," he says. "Come and see her." 

They go down the hall and peek into the room where Honey is asleep. The baby is in a crib at her side. 

"Look at her, Eames. Isn't she amazing?" says Arthur. 

Eames looks into the crib. The baby has a shock of dark hair and a squashed-up red face. "She's lovely," he says. 

At the house, Tabitha and Candy have cleared up the remains of the meal. Ginger's gone off somewhere. 

"We never ate pie," says Tabitha. "Let's have it for supper." 

So they sit round the kitchen table with slices of pumpkin pie and glasses of milk. 

"We never said our thankfuls, either," says Candy. 

Eames looks at Arthur, frowning. 

"You go round the table and each say what you’re thankful for," Arthur explains. 

"Ah, well, let's do it," says Eames. 

"I'm thankful to have my whole family here at last," says Tabitha. "Thank you, Eames, for bringing our Artie home." She smiles and reaches for his hand. Eames swallows, finds he has to blink. 

"It was my pleasure, ma'am," he says. 

"I'm thankful for that as well," says Skippy. "And I'm thankful for my new little granddaughter." 

"I'm thankful for family," says Arthur, taking Eames's hand on the tabletop. "I'm so thankful for you." 

"Oh darling," says Eames. "Oh love." 

"Aww," says Candy. "Well, I'm sure thankful school is nearly done. Just this year and I'll be outta here." 

Eames uses the moment as they all laugh to hold Arthur's hand even tighter. "I'm so very thankful for us, darling," he says, quietly.


	5. Chapter 5

Honey comes home with the baby late on Friday afternoon. She's called Ashlee, and Arthur can't take his eyes off her. Eames can't take his eyes off Arthur. 

Jim-Bob seems besotted, and brings a bottle of Jack Daniel's out to where Arthur and Eames are sitting on the sagging porch couch. 

"I hope y'all are going to be good uncles," he says. 

Arthur raises his eyebrows. "We'll do our best," he says. 

"Our best will be pretty good," says Eames. 

The next day, as they say goodbye, Skippy whispers in Eames's ear, "By the way, my real name's Susan." 

Eames glances over at Arthur, who's smiling, full dimples, and raising an eyebrow. 

In the car, Arthur rests his head against the window. "Can we have Christmas on our own?" he says. 

Eames reaches for his hand. "Of course, darling. I'll find some mistletoe to hang up."

**Author's Note:**

> There are more stories in this series already written, and others merely thought of.


End file.
